Senior Commercial Legal Manager At Diageo

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Diageo is the world’s leading premium drinks company with an outstanding collection of brands, such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray and Guinness. Our purpose - Celebrating life, every day, everywhere – has an important role in our company, for our people, our diversity, our brands, in how we perform and how we create shared value.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Senior Commercial Legal Manager

Ref Id: JR1043700
Location: Ikeja, Lagos
Type: Full time
Worker Type: Regular

About the Role

• The Senior Commercial Legal Manager will have the primary responsibility of managing external legal counsel, proactively manage claims and litigation, intellectual property, competition and antitrust issues, provide legal advisory services to the whole spectrum of the business including procurement, supply, distribution, agency, production, marketing, logistics, finance and commercial; employment matters;
• S/he will manage the legal aspects of compliance, innovation, product liability, counterfeit products and compliance with the Diageo Marketing Code review of advertising and promotions.
• The incumbent will have responsibilities for industrial relations management including supporting the management and relationship with employee unions at both local and national levels.
• The ideal candidate will also have company secretarial management, Board and regulatory liaison and management responsibilities for a publicly quoted company to ensure there are no defaults that can lead to regulatory sanctions and financial penalties as well as significant regulatory and stakeholder management responsibilities.
• The candidate will supervise functional internal Diageo and external statutory audit to ensure satisfactory ratings and outcomes while supporting the risk management mitigation process.

Legal:

• As the leading beverage alcohol company in every region of the world, at Diageo, we’re proud to be custodians  of globally-recognised names such as Baileys, Guinness, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker. The variety, reach and reputation of our brands, our international presence as a business and the intricacy of the laws that surround our work make Diageo a very rewarding place for talented legal professionals.
• Our team comprises everything from corporate to corporate security, intellectual property to mergers and acquisitions, compliance to technical. They touch the widest range of subjects, from company assets and our global business agenda to data privacy and anti-corruption initiatives.
• As a lawyer in Diageo you’ll bring a distinct perspective to the business, assessing and clearly communicating risk, as well as looking for creative ways to tackle the wide variety of ever-evolving challenges that today’s commercial world presents. Innovators, communicators and advisors all thrive here.

Your Role

• As a commercial lawyer in line with world class in house legal function, will give increased focus on the commercial business and legal support to ensure that the business has good and solid relationships with all external stakeholders including but not limited to customers, suppliers, distributors and agents. This will include negotiation and finalisation of all agreements, providing advice on consumer, competition, labour and all other commercial law.  In addition, there will be a requirement to ensure that strategic implementation is executed with excellence
• Ensure appropriate contracts are in place for all business relationships in line with the contracts management guidelines and the Statement of Authority and manage the end to end contract management system
• Act as business partner to the specific Functions assigned and provide primary legal counselling for all processes and operations; and an ability to support the company secretarial responsibilities of a large multinational quoted company with attendant regulatory, compliance and stakeholder management obligations
• Drive and institute legal, practical and workable solutions to disputes while upholding the company’s legal position and reputation consistent with values and ethical compass.
• Ensure awareness and support compliance across the business to all company policies including those on Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Bribery & Corruption, Data Privacy, Anti-Competition, Records Retention.

Experience Required

• Not less than twelve (12) years post-qualification experience as a practicing lawyer in a reputable commercial law firm or in the in-house legal department of a corporate entity (or equivalent)
• Strong commercial law background especially in the negotiation and documentation of commercial contracts relevant to the company’s business and giving advice in relation to marketing, sales and promotion activities.
• Confident, relaxed and robust personality with excellent inter-personal, written and verbal communication skills.
• Sound commercial lawyer with exceptional analytical, drafting and negotiating skills.
• Well organized and detail oriented, working well to deadlines and comfortable working on his/her own matters or as part of a larger team on a project.
• Open and outward looking attitude
• Ability to work confidently and stand ground with more senior managers
• Ability to translate strategy into action and manage risks while enabling achievement of business objectives in a compliant manner
• Proven regulatory and compliance management capability
• Full all-round capacity and readiness to deputize effectively in the role of head of legal function including management of external legal services providers
• Company secretarial knowledge with strong organizational and stakeholder management skills
• Guinness Nigeria/Diageo leadership capabilities – experienced.